Official Sequels - Do they Really Matter?

[Griking]

I was reading the thread about the next Zelda game being delayed and saw how pissed people were about it and it got me thinking. Does the name of the game really make a difference?

I really don't see the big deal in "official" sequels. All franchizes are are just games that have your favorite Nintendo (or other brand name) characters faces and names slapped onto them. Just look at all the recent Mario sports titles for an example.

What made Wind Walker a Zelda game, the character's names or the gameplay? I say it was by name only because the game didn't look or play like any other Zelda game.

And what about a game Like Super Mario RPG? It again was nothing like previous Mario games. If you took the exact same game and called the hero Dexter instead of Mario would it have made the game any better or worse?

Super Mario Bros 2 wasn't even intended to be a Mario game when it was designed. Due to the popularity of SMB1 and demand for more, Nintendo took whatever game that was available to them at the time that was nearly done and just slapped the SMB2 name on it and threw it out the door. People couldn't tell the difference.

With all the new 3D graphics and gameplay changes that everyones favorite franchizes have gone through what really makes a game an official sequel other than the name?

[Kid Ice]

With all the new 3D graphics and gameplay changes that everyones favorite franchizes have gone through what really makes a game an official sequel other than the name?

Most often the 3D sequels to 2D games retain the elements that made the 2D game so popular. I'm thinking of Metroid Prime...yeah, it was 3D, but you still had most of the good stuff you had in the 2D game...the morph ball stuff, the weapons, the enemies, the suits, etc.

In some cases it just doesn't work. I'm thinking Castlevania here. Those 3D games aren't bad, but the connection to the earlier 2D games is sort of tenuous.

I posted a thread about Super Mario 64 about a month ago. Most of those who said it's not really a great game took issue with the translation to 3D, and felt that the 3D version had simply lost the feel of the earlier 2D games. They didn't say they disliked the game itself, they just didn't feel that it successfully translated the gameplay of the earlier games.

Still I don't think you can arbitrarily take any 3D game and make it a sequel to a 2D game. I felt SM64 was not only a fine game in its own right, but successfully updated the convention, and to some degree, the "feel" of the 2D games. What if they had made, say, Pikmin the sequel to SM64 instead of SM Sunshine? I'm not a big fan of Sunshine but I do recognize it as a valid entry into the series...there are enough Mario characteristics in the game to make it a Mario game (just not IMO a particularly good one). Now say Pikmin had little baby Marios instead of little baby aliens...I just couldn't accept that as a Mario sequel and I don't think gamers in general would.

So to answer your question, I don't think you can slap a franchise name and character on any old game and call it a sequel. It would be like making Halo a Metroid game and saying "You know who's holding that gun...Samus!" Or doing a Tony Hawk sequel where Hawk becomes a dancer and moves based on your button timing, with no skateboarding elements. However, there are some games out there that validate your point...a game like Defender (2002 version), for example, doesn't bring enough of the original's gameplay to the update to be considered a valid update to the original.